College Township Council Chair Carla Stilson is resigning in July after a decade of serving on the township’s governing board.
Citing personal reasons, Stilson will step down from the position of chair at the conclusion of council’s meeting on Thursday and will resign from council on July 1, according to a letter to township staff and fellow council members on Tuesday.
“Thank you all for your professionalism, thoughtfulness, and dedication to democracy,” she wrote. “I have been blessed over this past decade to be part of this truly positive organization that in its daily work marches toward the will of its community. It has been an honor and an education beyond compare.”
Stilson’s elected term expires at the end of 2023 and she was not seeking reelection. First elected to a two-year interim term in 2013, Stilson was subsequently the top vote-getter for College Township Council in the 2015 and 2019 elections.
“This is my 10th year now and my family is at a pace that I can’t keep up with council the way that I would like to,” Stilson told StateCollege.com on Wednesday. “The half-a-year decision to leave early I can just sum it up to say that sometimes life gives you things that you need to stop other things to take care of. You have to turn around and put your attention to something else and that’s kind of what happened.”
During her decade on council, Stilson has seen many changes at the regional and township levels.
She cited the Centre Region Council of Government’s adoption of a Climate Action and Adaptation Plan in 2021 among the most memorable.
“The work with COG toward the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan has been a really positive movement for the region,” Stilson said. “It seemed like something that was really far away when I first was elected. We’ve gotten a lot of buy-in on it and it’s come a long way.”
She also counts College Township’s development of a Pedestrian Facilities Master Plan, which was adopted in 2022, among her proudest achievements with other council members and staff. When she was first elected, Stilson’s children were very young and she often walked and biked with them or had them in strollers.
“Connectivity for transportation other than cars has always been a passion of mine,” she said. “I saw the gaps at a personal level, and… in the past 10 years working with the township on a master plan to pull that all together and not grant developers waiver after waiver has been a huge change in the township. It’s really turned a leaf. I’m not going to say that’s driven by me or anything, but it’s been driven by the council members that have come through in the last 10 years and it’s been really neat to see.”
The remaining four council members will have 60 days from the date of Stilson’s resignation to appoint a replacement.
Stilson, meanwhile, said she will continue engaging with local government in less official ways in the future.
“My experience as an elected official has been I think one of the big prides of my life only in the fact that I’ve gotten the opportunity to work with really amazing people,” she said. “Local elected officials, we’re not paid for the work we do but we’re still elected and I think it provides a really unique atmosphere for democracy. It’s been a real honor to be a part of that.”
